5.  The first and second applicants were born in 1963 and 1948 and live in Helsinki. The applicant company is based in Helsinki. The applicant company is the publisher of a daily newspaper called Helsingin Sanomat which has a circulation of approximately 430,000. The first applicant was a journalist and the second applicant the editor-in-chief of the publication at the relevant time.
6.  On 3 February 2000, during the presidential election campaign, a short article was published in the newspaper Ilta-Sanomat, entitled “The ex-husband of [R. U.] and the person in charge of communications for the [E.A.] campaign have found each other”. The article stated that P.N., who was separated from his wife, had found a new partner, O.T. The wife of P.N. was known as a political reporter in the election-related TV debates and previously as a news reader. It was mentioned in the article that O.T. was in charge of communications for the E. A. campaign and that, in her civilian life, O.T. was the communications manager in a specified pension insurance company and a mother.
7.  The article went on to state that, before joining the campaign, O.T. had been active in the same political party as P.N. and that she had been involved in some “insider committees”. The article continued to note that P.N. worked as a director for F., a company promoting Finnish exports, and that in the 1990s he had been posted in New York, where his wife had followed him, taking leave from her own job. The article stated that P.N. and his wife had two children and that they had separated in the autumn of 1999. Pictures of O.T. and P.N.'s wife were included in the article.
8.  On 1 February 2002 the journalist and the editor-in-chief of Ilta-Sanomat were convicted by the Forssa District Court (käräjäoikeus, tingsrätten) for having violated O.T.'s private life by publishing the original article. On 12 December 2002 and 4 July 2005, respectively, the Turku Court of Appeal (hovioikeus, hovrätten) and the Supreme Court (korkein oikeus, högsta domstolen) upheld the judgment. These proceedings were public.
9.  On 2 and 10 February 2002 the applicant company published two articles on the trial and the judgment of the Forssa District Court, written by the first applicant and approved by the second applicant.
10.  The first article summarised the judgment of the District Court, including O.T.'s full name and the court's sentence. It also described the court proceedings and stated that the decision had required a vote as one of the lay members of the court would have preferred to dismiss the charges. Moreover, the first article also included some of the details about O.T.'s private life already published in the original article of 3 February 2000.
11.  The second article was published as a legal column in a Sunday edition of the paper. The article reproduced the content of the original article without mentioning any names. It made reference to the trial and went on to explain the history of the Penal Code section concerning invasion of privacy that had been introduced in 1974. The article went on to state that the law did not define privacy, but left it to the courts to interpret on a case-by-case basis. The section was amended in 2000, but the only change in essence, according to the article, was the title of the section, now known as dissemination of information violating private life. The article further noted that the worst fears of the press had never materialised but there had been some surprises. The article made reference to a decision of the Supreme Court from 2001 to convict Alibi magazine for publishing a story with a picture and the name of a person who was at the time accused and later convicted of fraud on public pension funds. The article then reverted to the judgment in question pondering, without mentioning any names, as to who could be considered a private person and what was the responsibility of such a person with regard to his or her public performance and behaviour.
12.  On 14 March 2002 O.T. requested that a criminal investigation be initiated against the applicants on the basis of the articles. The prosecutor pressed charges on 31 January 2003 and the applicants were summonsed on 31 March and 1 April 2003.
13.  As the original decision of 1 February 2002 by the Forssa District Court had been upheld by the Turku Court of Appeal on 12 December 2002 and was pending before the Supreme Court, the Vantaa District Court decided on 15 September 2004 to wait for the final decision in the original case before examining the applicants' case. It is stated in the decision of the Vantaa District Court that the request for adjournment was made by the applicants. This is contested by the first applicant.
14.  On 4 July 2005 the Supreme Court gave a lengthy judgment in the case against Ilta-Sanomat (KKO 2005:82) wherein the question of whether the article had infringed O.T.'s privacy was thoroughly examined in the light of the national legislation and the case-law of the Court.
15.  On 18 October 2005 the Vantaa District Court held a hearing in the applicants' case.
16.  On 3 November 2005 the District Court convicted the applicants of dissemination of information violating private life. The first applicant was ordered to pay 740 euros (EUR), the second applicant EUR 1,140, both amounts being 10 day fines as adjusted by their taxable income. All three applicants were ordered jointly to pay compensation to O.T. in the amount of EUR 6,000 plus interest for suffering and distress and EUR 11,845.95 plus interest for her legal costs.
17.  The court found that as two years had passed since the publication of the original article, O.T. was now entitled to the total enjoyment of private life and that there had thus been no ground for the disclosure of her name. As to the legality principle, a Penal Code could not be drafted in a manner covering all possible situations that might be envisaged. The first applicant had been well aware of the legal situation, and the interpretation of the provision in question had been well established and foreseeable. When a court found that private life has been invaded, another offence will be committed if that judgment is reported by mentioning the very same details of private life. The court was not unanimous as one of the lay judges dissented.
18.  By letters dated 30 November and 1 December 2005 the applicants appealed to the Helsinki Court of Appeal claiming, inter alia, that the conviction and sanctions imposed on them violated Article 10 of the Convention and that no grounds had been presented to show why it had been necessary in the present case to restrict their freedom of expression. Confidential information could only be disclosed once. The District Court judgment was public and everyone had a constitutional right to have information about a public document. The information had also been published twice before. The applicants had lacked intent as they had not realised that they were committing a crime when publishing the articles.
19.  On 20 April 2007 the Court of Appeal upheld the Vantaa District Court's judgment. The applicants were obliged to cover O.T.'s legal fees before the Court of Appeal in the amount of EUR 2,623 plus interest. The court found that the present case was about conflicting fundamental rights, namely the core areas of protection of private life and the margins of the freedom of expression. It was not juridically relevant whether the disclosed information was based on court case files or whether somebody else had earlier disclosed that information. As the Forssa District Court had on 1 February 2002 already found that the information disclosed in the original article had invaded O.T.'s privacy and as she was no longer in the same position as in 2000, the applicants had had no right to disclose her name when reporting on the Forssa District Court judgment.
20.  By letters dated 24 May and 13 June 2007 the applicants appealed to the Supreme Court, reiterating the grounds of appeal already presented before the Court of Appeal.
21.  On 28 December 2007 the Supreme Court refused the applicants leave to appeal.